06/28/2026
Drawn from the raw material of her drifts and detours, here's a program of radical diaries and personal documentaries from one of the West's bravest makers. Gritty glimpses of edgy experience in marginalized cultures, her authentic film stories afford rare access and insight into the lived poetry of a dozen-plus autonomous zones.-Other Cinema
We are diving into the legendary short film work of Greta Snider. All presented in 16mm film. We begin with a Urine Man and end with a 3D dual projection piece.. Cult of Compliance (3-D glasses will be provided)
No Zones with Greta Snider screens July 13th 7p
Urine Man 6min. 2000
The Urine Man, a longtime neighbor, agreed to be interviewed but with a great many stipulations. One of these was that he would only discuss his philosophical platform, and would not answer any questions. Nor were we to turn the camera on or off without permission. It became an enormous power struggle. Thus, this eloquent rant of the Urine Man's unique cosmology. Mysteriously, the Urine Man and his schoolbus/home disappeared the week after the filming, after being in the same location for at least ten years.
The Magic of Radio 23min 2001
A wild and beautiful excursion into the world of pirate and amateur radio, including interviews with the bicycle pirate, Free Radio Austin, and Robert K6QXY; plus mystery sounds from space!
Portland 12min 1996
Three friends, including the filmmaker, rendez-vous in Portland by hitchhiking or train-hopping from different cities. After a week of arguments, soup kitchens, brushes with the law, and bad weather, each leaves with a different memory of the trip, refracted through the tensions and expectations of their triangulated friendship. PORTLAND reconstitutes the trip in a humorous mixture of footage from the journey (taken with a run-down Super 8 camera), interpreted re-enactments, and interviews with the involved parties. The result is a spirited look at independent women and fearless travelers.
No-Zone 19min 1993
"Greta S. incorporates a sprinkling of traditional bay-area style - cutting and pasting images from an obscure range of memorabilia footage and pop culture - as she guides us through the tribulations and ecstasies of life in the 90s. NO-ZONE generates the feeling of reading a book, as a gamut of emotions are brought to life in a series of short fables. The disturbing issues of AIDS, nuclear waste in one's front yard, and the ever present mid-life crisis, are translated through gun visuals, manipulated text and in-your-face close-ups. Paranoia and discontent with the state of the world are coolly relayed in soap opera time, via two of the film's episodes - Sickness and Toxin. Relief from this environment comes in the form of doing 30kms on a skateboard, downtown and foraging for edible berries in the wilderness .... Alas no happy ending here, as a mini-doc focusing on The End of History, stakes its claim as the crowing glory."
Quarry Movie 10min 1999
This movie began as an attempt to document a place...not only its image as lensed, but its weather, its soil, and its toxins. Ten filmmakers fanned out over the landscape, seeing it through twenty eyes. In the avant-garde tradition of messing with the surface (the 'environmental film' has been around in various incarnations for years - e.g. silt), the film documents this place outside of the camera as well. The organisms in the water and the soil have made their marks on it; the water's physical erosion acts upon the image; even the leached metals in this exhausted quarry pit's waters can be seen in the chemicals used to process the film. The idea in the QUARRY MOVIE was not to use techniques to achieve a 'look,' but rather to achieve a presence, and then see what it looks like. QUARRY MOVIE comes out of a fruitful combination of documentary and event garde interests.
Cult of Compliance 10min 2019 (IN 3D!)
Cult of Compliance combines original cityscape footage of tech-era San Francisco with archival film, including materials from a ubiquitous SF clothing brand's worldwide sweatshops, and the epic struggles of organisms from an educational treasury. The film is an exploration of the conditions our institutions currently demand - irreconcilable struggle between systems and people in late capitalism. Presented in mismatched stereoscope, the film invites viewers to immerse in an affective cinema that is at once pleasurable but also impossible to resolve. The original sound composition was designed by Los Angeles audio artist Kiri Lewallen
